Archives For
Curation

I’ve been experimenting with a new field recording technique lately: recording four audio tracks to a MixPre-6 with a bonus summed stereo mix paired with a few handheld portable recorders thrown in as backup. The result of these multi-channel field recording sessions? My external hard drive is running out of space.

It’s true storage is pretty cheap. Just the same, I like getting a lot of mileage from of my terabytes. That’s why I make a backup of my raw field recordings in the space-saving FLAC format as soon as I return to the studio.

Earlier this week I converted some WAVs to FLAC and archived them to cloud storage. As I watched them upload, I began to think: what other reasons do people use these apps? What’s the best sound file conversion app? Will free sound file converters work well or is it better to pay for apps? Which allow batching and what file formats do they support?

So, to answer those questions, today’s post is dedicated to exploring sound file converter apps for MacOS and Windows.

Please note: I am very detailed. This article should take you about 11 minutes to read. Click the button below to email the article to yourself to read later.

A few years ago I started a series called “Metadata Month” (series 1, series 2). That explored how to add the valuable bonus text info known as metadata to sound effects to aid searching and using field recordings.

In one of those posts I took a stab at listing every “metadata app” capable of managing sound libraries, browsing sound clips, using and adding metadata, and transferring sound files.

There were 15 apps in that post. Well, it’s been three years and things have changed. Recently I refreshed the post with new info.

Recently sound effects metadata app Soundminer added an often-requested sound library curatorial feature: it is now possible to apply both category and subcategories to sound fx listings at once. What’s more, Soundminer provides a list of categories from a pre-defined list, making a once tedious exercise swift and simple.

Calls for the feature had been floating around for a while. Last month Tim Nielsen (Lord of the Rings, Avatar) posted on Facebook revisiting the idea. Well, the team at Soundminer took the concept and ran with it.

Today’s post will explain the value of working with a pre-defined category and subcategory to sound effects. It will share how to use the new Soundminer features. Finally, I’ll include step-by-step instructions for creating and adding your own custom category and subcategory list to Soundminer, and also one from the Airborne Sound library that you can use yourself.

Today’s post describes a quick workflow for creating your own sound fx library category and subcategory list. The post also deconstructs a sample field recording tree. It shows the thought process behind building a category and subcategory list that you can use as inspiration for building your own method of classifying sound effects.

You’ve been at it for years. Every weekend you’ve ventured out and captured dozens of fresh field recordings. Now, your hard drive is bursting with sound effects. There are thousands. How do you sort them all? How can you find the clip you want?

The first place to start is by writing a good sound file name. Other metadata fields follow, such as description, track title, and others. Once you’ve captured many similar sound effects, it’s helpful to collect them all in one spot. This is done by placing similar clips within a category and subcategory.

What are the best sound effect category and subcategories? How do you name them? Is it better to have dozens, or a select, chosen few?

Today’s article explores those questions. It shares why categorization is important for large sound libraries. It delves into the theory behind sonic grouping. The post includes lists of sample categorization trees you can browse and use yourself.

Not every sound effect has a perfect name. And, in the case of legacy DVD or CD libraries, they may have barely any name at all.

It’s easy to correct a single name, or even a dozen. What happens whey you find yourself working with a collection of thousands of unnamed files? No one has time to fix a horde of mysterious files one at a time.

So, today I’ll finish off the second “Metadata Month” by showing how you can do this more quickly using batch renaming.

Many metadata apps can rename sound libraries. However, the apps can be expensive. Batch renaming does this simply, free of charge or inexpensively, often using just the apps included with your OS.

It’s not hard. You don’t need to be a power user. However, it is a bit more involved, and does require concentration. Set aside some time, grab yourself a coffee, and settle in. I’ll guide you through the process.

Please note: I am very detailed. This post should take about 12 minutes to read. Click the button below to email the article to yourself to read later.

Metadata apps are incredibly complex. They import and search sound clips. They audition and transfer sound fx. Many allow audio processing with sound design plug-ins. And of course they read, add, and write metadata.

That’s a lot to wrap your brain around. Don’t let that scare you, though. This year’s “Metadata Month” theme is “Back to Basics.” This series of articles is intended to help you get started embedding your first metadata fields.

Today we’ll look at the metadata app Soundminer. The popular sound browsing software is an absolutely huge app. It is incredibly powerful and packed with features I have yet to discover myself. Today we’ll simplify Soundminer by learning one single task: how to embed sound effects metadata in Soundminer.

This post is meant to be an overview to get you up and running adding metadata to your sound fx collections. By the end of the article you’ll have learned how to add files, find them, and embed metadata in its two most common methods.